Topic: Gears of War 2

[MysterD]

Y'all knew there'd have to be a Gears of War 2 planned by Epic Games...

Gears of War 2 Announced [February 20, 2008, 4:03 pm ET] - Viewing Comments
Cliff Bleszinski closed Microsoft's keynote address at the GDC by announcing Gears of War 2, an Xbox 360 exclusive due this November. Word from Microsoft Game Studios is: "This highly anticipated sequel to the 4.5 million-selling blockbuster 'Gears of War' delves deeper into humanity’s struggle for survival against the nightmarish Locust Horde, and promises to take high-definition visuals to a whole new level." And word from CliffyB is: "To our team the original game was just a tease, the appetizer to the ‘Gears of War’ characters and new style of gameplay. We were so amped to get to the next chapter, and dig deeper into the universe of this franchise. ‘Gears of War 2’ is an even bigger, better, and more badass experience than the first game, and we can’t wait to get it in the hands of eager gamers this November." There's a trailer teasing the game on Gamer's Hell.

EDIT:
Nice video on GameSpot as to some of the new features they have for the latest version of Unreal Engine.

[Quemaqua]

All it needs is some real boss fights.  Oh, and for them to not fuck me over by releasing extra content on another platform after I already bought it.

[idolminds]

PC versions sans-Live, plz.

[Xessive]

PC versions sans-Live, plz.

Ditto.

[gpw11]

Cut the MP and put the resources into the SP plz.

[iPPi]

Yea the Versus mode wasn't great in Gears of War.

[scottws]

PC versions sans-Live, plz.

The Live stuff they can leave or take, I don't care, but get rid of the stuttering issue!

[Pugnate]

Sorry, on what system does it stutter again? It runs great on my PC, which isn't different from yours. Though I've never tried it since I switched completely to Vista.

[scottws]

My PC.  Just search for "Gears of War stuttering" in Google and you'll see it's a pretty huge issue.

[Pugnate]

Yea I've seen quite a few people mention it on the Cliffy B threads across the web. I though it was just people venting.

I wonder why they haven't fixed it yet if it affects so many people.

[poomcgoo]

What the hell?  Gears MP is fucking great.  I beat the single player once on casual back when it was released and jumped on the MP right after and now it's pretty much all I play for 360.

[Pugnate]

I have to side with PoomC. I think one of the things that elevated Gears to such high status is the multiplayer. I think kids just loved the gore, especially online, when they were blasting strangers to pulp.

[scottws]

I personally thought GoW multi sucked too.  But I'm used to 32-player online battles on PC so I guess the 8-player thing just seems really sparse to me.

[MysterD]

Yea I've seen quite a few people mention it on the Cliffy B threads across the web. I though it was just people venting.

I wonder why they haven't fixed it yet if it affects so many people.

B/c Epic gives love to only console games now.

[idolminds]

Heres a youtube vid of the Unreal Engine improvements. Though I can't say I'm totally impressed with them. Not that they are bad (the big horde of locusts is neat), just...eh.

And the water still incorrectly reflects the lights in the environment. That always bugs me. Watch the light highlight on the left side of the pool, especially when it goes to the static camera. Theres a light highlight right next to the wall and theres no light source. Must be too expensive to do that kind of thing properly. I noticed the same thing in the Source engine, where a lightsource should be blocked by something yet is still being reflected.

*EDIT*

Spoke too soon. The soft body physics thing was cool looking.

[Xessive]

The Live stuff they can leave or take, I don't care, but get rid of the stuttering issue!

I remember I had the stuttering when I first played the game; it stuttered even during FMV's. I was able to solve that problem with driver reinstall, DX update, and reset the video settings. I don't think the stuttering issue everyone's complaining about is the same though.

My biggest problem, however, was the random crash to desktop with the .exe error, to which the only work-around was alt-tab back to the game with no LIVE support (unless you were still at the main menu, in which case it could not recover). The first set of threads all I was told was that it a configuration problem from my side, but as it turned out about 2 months later it was in fact a problem with G4WLive and thank God it's fixed with an update. Naturally I can't do the auto-update because the game won't stay open long enough for the update to complete. I had to get the manual download, which Microsoft doesn't make very easy to find or clearly available. It wasn't till a couple of months ago that they posted it on the Support page of the G4WLive website.

I personally think Live did more to hurt the game than help it.

I hope the stuttering problem is solved though. It's a real shame that such a bug is keeping you from enjoying the game. Could it be a Live problem?

[PyroMenace]

I just played through it again, its pretty fantastic. What I'm hoping for with the third one is that they either fix the turret gun segments or they keep them out altogether, the turret mini gun in Gears 2 is sluggish and very irritating to aim with, I've had to repeat those segments many times unnecessarily.

[MysterD]

I remember I had the stuttering when I first played the game; it stuttered even during FMV's. I was able to solve that problem with driver reinstall, DX update, and reset the video settings. I don't think the stuttering issue everyone's complaining about is the same though.

My biggest problem, however, was the random crash to desktop with the .exe error, to which the only work-around was alt-tab back to the game with no LIVE support (unless you were still at the main menu, in which case it could not recover). The first set of threads all I was told was that it a configuration problem from my side, but as it turned out about 2 months later it was in fact a problem with G4WLive and thank God it's fixed with an update. Naturally I can't do the auto-update because the game won't stay open long enough for the update to complete. I had to get the manual download, which Microsoft doesn't make very easy to find or clearly available. It wasn't till a couple of months ago that they posted it on the Support page of the G4WLive website.

I personally think Live did more to hurt the game than help it.

I hope the stuttering problem is solved though. It's a real shame that such a bug is keeping you from enjoying the game. Could it be a Live problem?

G4WL honestly just sucks - just all of the game profile save issues are foolish, so it surely needs fixing. I never ran into it (luckily), but there were rampant problems w/ it for PC versions of GOW, Batman AA, GTA4, and FO3. Microsoft needs to completely overhaul it on the PC - especially since they are planning to release more titles for the (Windows) PC i.e. Fable 3.

Steam's much better for MP and has a much better toolset for Friends and all of that stuff - despite its DRM and other odd quirks (i.e. blob file issues).

Oh, I agree w/ you - if say Epic released GOW on Steam, they might've had the kind of success w/ it that they hit w/ UT3 Black over Steam...

[gpw11]

Yeah, microsoft really needs to do something here.  I've had problems with most g4wl games because of some sort of wireless connectivity problem or other.  Steam games I've had the smaw levels of problems with?  None.

[W7RE]

Gow2 is having a bonus XP weekend right now. 31x XP started this morning and lasts the rest of the weekend.

I also saw something on twitter about "chainsaw massacre" settings. Only enemies that can be chainsawed, all enemies that can use lancers do, and there's no interrupt when trying to rev your chainsaw. I played a few matches of Annex though, and I'm just getting shotgunned down repeatedly. It's obvious I don't play as much Gears as these people.

[W7RE]

I just started up Minecraft while waiting for GoW2 matchmaking to finish. I got lost in a cave, found some obsidian (but didn't have the tools to mine it). Then I looked up at the clock and realized it's been matchmaking for 40 minutes. Wow...